Do you need a body to think? This is a worthwhile (and also a perplexing) question, and an ongoing debate amongst roboticists. Cognitive Roboticist Dr. Mark Bickhard is part of a field of belief that cognition and intelligence - and maybe consciousness itself - requires embodiment and direct interaction with the world. In this interview, he discusses the concept of normative function and self maintenance in entities, and why this matters when it comes to thinking.

Stephan Vladimir Bugaj is a modern visionary with extensive experience in screenwriting, technical artistry and directing in animation and games. He is the Creative Director at Hanson Robotics, where he specializes in robot personality and functional design. He is also a writer-director for WakingUp media and Visioneer studios, two screenwriting and production companies, and part of the story "brain trust" for Limitless VR. Stephan worked for over 10 years as a screenwriter and technical director with Pixar Animation Studios, and before that was a multimedia researcher at Bell Labs and artificial intelligence developer at Intelligenesis/Webmind. In this episode, Stephan draws on his robotics background to articulate what it takes to give a humanoid robot a "personality", and explains the differences between responses and propensities. Androids are already making news in the entertainment and retail industries, but we delve into why the health sector is next, and how culture might influence social acceptance.

Do lobsters really have something to teach us about developing AI and robotics? Dr. Joseph Ayers, a professor of Marine and Environmental Sciences at Northeastern University,  has dedicated his research and work to the subject and has paved new directions for the future of AI and robotics in the domain of biomimetics. In this episode, Dr. Ayers provides a comprehensive overview of his development of autonomous underwater robots that help discover and destroy dangerous underwater land mines, and the potential for other animal-like robots to perform other “dull and dangerous” services for humankind. He provides a concluding perspective on two major obstacles facing robotics, one of which is the concept of autonomy, providing valuable insight in light of the current events around autonomous AI.

Dr. Bruce MacLennan is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK), as well as past editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Nanotechnology and Molecular Computation. His research in natural computation has led to active, interdisciplinary involvement in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, and philosophy. In this episode, Bruce discusses how studying the mind has influenced, and will continue to influence, the development of artificial intelligence. In a largely digital world, he turns a clarifying light on the topic of digital versus analog computing, and articulates on how the latter may be making a slow comeback in the wake of discoveries in neural information processing.

Dr. Peter Boltuc has a PhD in Philosophy and is currently a Professor at University of Illinois Springfield.  His background in Moral and Political Philosophy has leveraged his research into the subjectivity of moral experience and the moral implications of machine consciousness. In this episode, Peter discusses whether machines could ever be granted consciousness.  He believes, hypothetically, that we could create such machines, and elaborates from an ethical perspective on why we may want to “curve moral space” in a way that values human-level sentience and moves us toward living harmoniously with such machines.

Dr. Gary Marcus is the Director of the NYU Center for Language and Music, and Professor of Psychology at New York University, and is author of well known books such as The Birth of the Mind, The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science, and the New York Times Editor’s Choice called Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind.   In this episode, Dr. Marcus gives us some insight as to what the brain is good and bad at, and why - in addition to what this might imply for the future of human enhancement.

Dr. Joanne Pransky received her doctorate from Tufts University in the mid 1980’s, and began championing public awareness and exposure to robotics and AI technology, playfully calling herself the “first robot psychiatrist.” Since then, she’s been featured on CNN, The Discovery Channel, the Sci-Fi Channel, and even the Tonight Show with Jay Leno - aiming to expose the world to technology and it’s ethical implications. In this interview, Dr. Joanne speaks with me about the virtues and vices of how the media portrays AI to the public… and why she likes recent AI movies like “Her” and “Ex Machina,” but questions scandalous newspaper headlines about industrial robots “killing people”, as well as her thoughts about the types of conversations that she believes America (and world) should be having in order to move technology forward safely and fruitfully.

Dr. Hables Gray graduated with a PhD in applied philosophy from UCAL Santa Cruz, and is best known for his writings on technology, war, and cyborgs (the combination of organic and inorganic, the evolved and the invented).   In this interview, Dr. Hables Gray explains his ideas around how seemingly mundane technologies and social media help to blur the line between man and machine, as well as his predictions for how car cyborgs will progress in the coming decades (including the integration of drone technology, brain-machine interface, and more).

Sean Blacknell has spent the last year working on a filmed called “The Future of Work and Death,” based on interviews with futurists, economists, philosophers, and other experts - with an aim to bring the film to Sundance and other prominent festivals in the coming year.   In this interview, Sean explains some of the most meaningful lessons he’s gained about the future of humanity from all of the interviews for his own film.

Dr. Roger Schank received his PhD from Stanford, taught at Yale, and altogether has spent around three decades attempting to solve the big problems of artificial intelligence. In this interview, Dr. Schank talks about a kind of helpful “teaching” artificial intelligence that would go beyond Siri and help us to make the right decisions at the right times given our own objectives. He explains why he believes such a project is not on Google’s agenda, and what he believes might be required to create such an AI.